Opioids Pain from broken back, need advice

[sludgefactory101]

hey everybody, im a 21 year old and im planning on going to pain management soon and have a few questions regarding my situation. I broke my back August 28th in a motorcycle wreck, had l2-l4 compression fractures and the l3/l4 disc is herniated. I was on roxy 10s and flexeril, but had flexeril switched to soma, for about a month and a half.

October 10th i told my ortho surgeon in wilmington that i feel fine (lied because i wanted to get out of that damn prison that is a tlso clamshell brace) and now my back still hurts like a bitch. i moved back to asheville to go back to work and i went to an urgent care the other day to see if anything was wrong with my back still and the dumbass doctor came in and she didnt even look at my back, just instantly said i cant write you oxycodone you need to get off of that the most i can do is vicodin. i said ok even though vicodin wont even touch my tolerance. but it kinda pissed me off that she thought i was still on it (shows how much urgent care docs look at charts). i got set up with an ortho surgeon up here in asheville and im going to see him this thursday. You think he'll put me back on my roxi 10s, or even 15s? my pain is a steady 7 in my back and i have a weird extremely sharp painful (10+ on a scale) feeling in my left knee sometimes. one doc said it might be a torn meniscus but he said i wouldnt even be able to walk with that. Just wondering what to expect. I really dont want to go in there and have him prescribe me more vicodin. I plan on telling him that it took at least 4 of those to take the edge off and that they made my stomach hurt. Its the damn truth but im scared they are gonna think im a drug seeker but i seriously just want to be able to live a normal life that a 21 year old should be living. I basically go to bed after work because my pain skyrockets from that and i just cant do anything. I smoke cannabis on the regular to try and take care of the pain but i cant keep kidding myself. i have cut back since this past monday and am stopping completely now. Would my ortho UA me? or is that just a PM clinic? My ortho in wilmington didnt even mention anything about a UA so im just wondering.

Also now that im pretty much at the 3 month mark of chronic pain, will i be sent to a PM doc? I'm gonna move back to wilmington with my family cause im uncomfortable being in this much pain and not being able to do much without family or friends around. Would it be a problem if he referred me to a clinic back in my hometown? thanks in advance and sorry for all the details and questions i just want to do this the best way because i know me being a 21 year old they already think just to overload my ass with tylenol and ibuprofen and send me on my way

 

[Lanni]

I don't know much about pain management doctors but my mother is a nurse so I know a bit about the medical field. If you go in to a doctor you haven't seen before and you request oxycodone, 9 times out of 10 they're most likely not gonna give it to you. I'd say your best bet is to take whatever they suggest/ prescribe to you and then say its not working for your pain or you're experiencing side effects from the tylenol etc. etc. Then move onto the next strongest medication, then the next and so forth until you're on something that effectively manages your pain. Like I said though I'm not experienced with pain management, however going in and directly asking for such a strong short acting opiate like oxycodone isn't going to get you anywhere IMHO. Best of luck

 

[sludgefactory101]

i appreciate the input. I know that its a bad look to go in and request oxycodone. but seeing as how i was already on it 10mg every 4 hours for over a month you dont think that he would keep me on something that my body is tolerant to?

 

[sekio]

The best advice I can give you is to treat the underlying cause of the pain rather than the pain itself. Your discussions with the doctor or ortho shouldn't even mention oxycodone until you have discussed more permanent treatment options. And for both you and your doctor's sake, don't rely on opioids exclusively as painkillers. They should be just a part of a cocktail of analgesics/anti-inflammatories, and it has been demonstrated in multiple settings that opioids+ibuprofen, for instance, are much more effective than just opioids for control of physical injury pain. Also look into local anaesthetics, possibly stuff like Flexeril too. If you need surgery or physiotherapy or even fucking acupuncture, do that. The longer you back-burner your treatment the more of your life you're going to piss away here. You have to be the best advocate for your treatment.

If you demonstrate to your doctors that you are more concerned about fixing the cause of the pain and doing whatever necessary to get relief they will very likely be more accepting of adding narcotics or whatever. But if you're going in and saying "give me vicodin my back hurts, I can't take anything else because I don't want to" you're not really going to get anywhere but labeled as a drug seeker.

Ibuprofen upsets your stomach? Get on Vioxx. Too expensive? Arthrotec. Can you get topical ketamine cream? Are there exercises you can do to improve mobility and speed tissue healing? Capsacin cream? etc.

The other advice I can give you is don't lie to the people who are supposed to be treating you. That really just fucks you over in the end.

Also, if you're in huge amounts of pain it is really not a good idea to be engaging in phsyical activity with your back/knees. If you damage them further you're kind of moving backwards!

 

[cm0247]

im just sick and tired of how the healthcare system now is so unbelievably extreme with narcotics and opiates... to the point of being utterly ridiculous and actually hurting their patients more, and leaving them in more pain, just because there are people out there that use them recreationally. no matter what, there will always be people who abuse drugs, but god damn, if you have legitimate medical issues that require a potent opiate regimen due to the worst cases of chronic pain and the management of it, you should be able to work with your doctor to get what you need, instead of always being refused or labeled a drug seeker, or prescribing you minimal amounts/doses just because they're propagandist drug-war nazis, indoctrinated by the same bullshit they all repeat across the board... opiates have legitimate medical and health benefits, in cases of the most extreme pain & injury issues, and im sick of their obsessive non-tolerance or understanding of this, and even when they do, they just throw you a prescription for the weakest opiate they can possibly think of and kick you out the door.... pisses me off to no end. for instance, basically destroying the entire benefits and actual effectiveness of oxy's and opana's just to try to deter abuse, fucking over all those that actually need them for pain management, and making the effectiveness of its actual potentcy &/or effectiveness of ingestion by using gummy fillers to the point where when they were first released, most people shat them out undigested.... just insanity and completely counter-productive, considering the people their trying to take away the ability to abuse from are just going to get their high some other way, or just obtain their IR forms, such as roxi's (which are still worse). just drives me nuts. okay, im done my lil' rant....

 

[BeachBum4u]

im just sick and tired of how the healthcare system now is so unbelievably extreme with narcotics and opiates... to the point of being utterly ridiculous and actually hurting their patients more, and leaving them in more pain, just because there are people out there that use them recreationally. no matter what, there will always be people who abuse drugs, but god damn, if you have legitimate medical issues that require a potent opiate regimen due to the worst cases of chronic pain and the management of it, you should be able to work with your doctor to get what you need, instead of always being refused or labeled a drug seeker, or prescribing you minimal amounts/doses just because they're propagandist drug-war nazis, indoctrinated by the same bullshit they all repeat across the board... opiates have legitimate medical and health benefits, in cases of the most extreme pain & injury issues, and im sick of their obsessive non-tolerance or understanding of this, and even when they do, they just throw you a prescription for the weakest opiate they can possibly think of and kick you out the door.... pisses me off to no end. for instance, basically destroying the entire benefits and actual effectiveness of oxy's and opana's just to try to deter abuse, fucking over all those that actually need them for pain management, and making the effectiveness of its actual potentcy &/or effectiveness of ingestion by using gummy fillers to the point where when they were first released, most people shat them out undigested.... just insanity and completely counter-productive, considering the people their trying to take away the ability to abuse from are just going to get their high some other way, or just obtain their IR forms, such as roxi's (which are still worse). just drives me nuts. okay, im done my lil' rant....

AMEN! It's nice to know there are others who feel the same way I do! I sometimes pull out my soapbox and rant for awhile. I'm sure some folks get tired of it but dammit, it's the truth and it absolutely drives me nucking futs!

 

[cm0247]

AMEN! It's nice to know there are others who feel the same way I do! I sometimes pull out my soapbox and rant for awhile. I'm sure some folks get tired of it but dammit, it's the truth and it absolutely drives me nucking futs!

heh, thanks for the support about what i said... yea, there are a lot of people out there who agree, and can see how obama has been destroying the healthcare system, in many ways, more than just what i wrote and was talking about. it's really sad, and i know how it is from personal experience, from my past issues with pain management, and its so ridiculous to the point, where it's more beneficial and easier for the patient who is suffering from medical & injury/pain issues to just say fuck it to the official routes for medication, and forcing them to just seek their needs for allieviating pain and the management of it, by just getting what they need from the black market/streets, and get what they need illegally, even though there's risk of getting caught... and it's just really really sad that the people that legitimately need help are being forced to do this, since the healthcare system now just refuses to properly help them. the war on drugs is such a fucking joke at this point, and more and more people are seeing through their veil of bullshit, and understanding that prohibition and their abuse deterrents don't help anyone at all, and are just overflowing our prisons with people who really don't deserve to be there or be treated this way.... it's all just extremely sad. but yea, thanks for backing me up.

 

[DETROIT*edm*JUNKIE]

Bro im all for treating pain, but you also need to make a plan to actually fix your back...


Physical therapy, surgery, hgh, deca, etc etc should be things that are top priority for you... then the oxys to bid the time till you fix your back...

It sounds like your addiction has taken priority over fixing your back, when it should be your long term health first and your addiction second.

 

[cm0247]

Bro im all for treating pain, but you also need to make a plan to actually fix your back...


Physical therapy, surgery, hgh, deca, etc etc should be things that are top priority for you... then the oxys to bid the time till you fix your back...

It sounds like your addiction has taken priority over fixing your back, when it should be your long term health first and your addiction second.

isn't that just an assumption though? how do you know he's not? maybe he just didn't mention all of that, since he was trying to focus on the topic at hand, and addressing the issue he wanted answers and advice for...? i mean, i could be wrong, and he might not have gone down any of those avenues at all or even thought about it, but i'm not saying he definitely did either. im just saying that your conclusion is, like i said, just an assumption... and btw, you also forgot to mention a chiropractor, and as for surgery, im sure he's prolly gone over all of that and discussed that with his doctors and orthos, which again, would be something he probably just didn't mention due to focusing on the topic and questions at hand....